


The (Not So) Good Old Days

by simthemuse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Regression, Gen, Grimmauld Place, Harry Potter and the Time the Weasleys Found Out About the Cupboard, Order of the Phoenix - Freeform, Partial amnesia, Twin Shenanigans, dumbledore bashing probably, ginny can and will throw hands, molly is a good mom and you can fight me on this, only appreciation for MY weasleys, takes place during the summer before 5th year
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 18:51:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16101674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simthemuse/pseuds/simthemuse
Summary: To pass the time, Fred and George decide to test out their joke shop gags on various residents of Grimmauld Place. This time Ron, Ginny, and Harry are the guinea pigs for their new ‘Memory Mints’ - breath mints designed to help the user recall pleasant childhood memories.Considering Harry’s own childhood and luck, things don’t quite go as planned.





	The (Not So) Good Old Days

****“Alright, everyone, step right up and get your very own Memory Mint!”

No one moved, aside from the heaving of shoulders into exasperated sighs and flipping of inappropriate fingers.

With reason, too, considering every other thing they’d been asked to ‘step right up and get’ since summer at Grimmauld Place had commenced.

Before Harry had arrived, there were the romance-inducing Chocolate Drops; Sale Scales, artificial dragon scales that can increase your likelihood of encountering a sale while on errands; animate bonsai trees called Bio-Warriors that engaged in warfare against just about anything; and of course, who could ever forget the Flower Flour, which caused daffodils to sprout in whatever the flour had been baked into. Nearly a month after the Flour Incident, people were still finding plant matter around the kitchen.

It only seemed to get worse once Harry showed up that night - Galloping Gadswollops (don’t ask); the Mis-Stick; the Narration Box; Sentient Kidney Beans, Literally Sentient, Just Listen to How These Little Guys Beg You Not to Eat Them, Ain’t That Neat; the Spontaneous Compass; and the Fondant Fingers. And that’s not counting what the twins cooked up _after_ Harry’s Ministry hearing.

Hermione, who was flopped on the floor and trading knitting tips with Ginny, shot up a disgruntled look at the twins. “I thought Mrs. Weasley told you not to test out all your little gags on us.”

Ron through a pillow at George, who dodged it by apparating to Fred’s other side. “Yeah,” Ron said. “If you’re gonna get in trouble again, then you can leave us out of it this time.”

Fred waved his wand, muttered a spell, and casually sent Ron’s pillow ammo flying back into his face. Ron tried to duck, but wasn’t fast enough.

“I’m hurt,” George teased in mock hurt. “Here I thought you, our littlest, ickiest brother would have our backs on this one."

“Yeah, this one doesn’t even blow up!”

“Drat, we should’ve added that function.”

“Later, later, for now we need to know it works.”

You -”

“-Anyways,” Ginny said stiffly, cutting them off. “What’s this ‘Memory Mint supposed to do then?”

The twins’ eyes danced with delight, and they each fished out handfuls of peppermints for all to see. “Wrapped em ourselves, we did.”

“Not as easy as you’d think, but can you imagine -”

“If we’d done it without magic?”

“Torture, I tell you. Thank Merlin we’re of age.”

Ginny’s impatient look hadn’t lifted, and was now mirroring the looks of both Ron and Hermione. Harry couldn’t help but chuckle. Seems he was the only one left with any patience for the twins’ antics anymore. Even Sirius, Prankster Number One, grew thin with them after a while.

“Are you done?” Ginny asked, arms crossed.

“Well since you’re so impatient.” George stuck his tongue out at her, a gesture she promptly reciprocated. “Fred, do the honours?”

Fred bowed, and held one of the mints up for display.  “This,” he said. “This is a Memory Mint. You’ll be flooded with pleasant memories from the first ten years of your life, for as long as it’s in your mouth.”

“Side effects?” Hermione asked, eyebrow quirked.

“Only your mind being _blown_ with how intense of a nostalgia trip it’ll be,” said Fred and George in unison, both of them chuckling to themselves. “So who wants to try?”  
There’s a short but stiff beat of silence, as Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Hermione all exchange glances.

Harry is the first to break the tension. “Alright then, I suppose I’ll give one a whirl.”

While the twins cheered in delight, Ron only gasped with disappointment.

“No, mate, not you! I thought I could trust you!”

Harry merely shrugged as he stepped into the space beside George. “What can I say? I’m curious about how far they’ll take it.”

“Of course,” said Fred.

“We’d expect nothing less from our benevolent benefactor,” said George.

Hermione’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Fred stumbled for the words. “Oh! He, uh, we just meant that he -”

“I’m a supporter of the cause,” Harry recovered for him, which caused Ron to groan into his pillow.

Ginny rose to her feet and ambled over beside Fred. “Guess you can count me in as well, then.”

“Fellow supporter?” Harry asked.

“Stockholder.”

“Ah."

Ron groaned once more, dumbfounded. “I can’t believe this is happening. Blimey, my own sister and best mate have turned against me.”

Ginny and Ron bickered a bit about whether or not this counted as ‘turning against him’, or if Ron was just being melodramatic, and Hermione kept her eyes fixed tight on the mints in George and Fred’s hands - as though staring at them intently enough would force their secrets upon her.

“Now then,” said Fred, clapping his hands with resolve. “Let’s -”

“- begin,” his twin finished, and reached out to hand mints over to their test subjects. But before Harry could accept the mint, Hermione shrieked.

“Wait! Aren’t you worried about the side effects? You could seriously hurt them!”

“Yeah,” Ron concurred. “We don’t want a repeat of the Leg Kickers, do we?”

Everyone in the room shuddered at the mention. Mentioning Leg Kickers was like speaking Voldemort’s name - technically allowed, but something of a taboo.

“This won’t be a repeat of - of _those_ ,” Fred insisted.

“And besides,” added George with a queasy grin, obviously shaken up by mention of the Leg Kickers. “We tested them ourselves, didn’t we Fred? And do we look dead to you?”

Fred giggled. “Heh, that rhymes. ‘Fred is dead’.

George looked at him as though he’d made some ingenious breakthrough in the english language. “Merlin’s beard, you’re right!”

The two of them proceeded to laugh themselves senseless over the comedic appeal of the statement ‘Fred is dead’, and contemplating how to include the saying into their business plan. A twist in Harry’s gut told him they’d probably approach _him_ about the idea later that night.

Meanwhile, Hermione found the break in the conversation as an opportunity to pester. “Ron! You have to do something about this!”

“Me?” He echoed grimacingly. “Why is it always me?”

“Because they’re your brothers, Ronald, seriously. What would happen if they killed Harry or Ginny with this?”

It wasn’t quite an epiphany that lit up Ron’s eyes, more like a grudging realization that he couldn’t really put this off much longer. “Oh alright,” he grumbled, and swung his feet over the edge of his bed. “I’m gonna hate myself for this.”

He pointed a finger at his brothers, who were somehow still tickled by their own wordplay. “Oi! You lot - listen up. If you’re done giggling like school-girls, then pass one of those mints over. I’m trying too.”

Harry couldn’t help but be surprised. Ron? Try one of the mints? He was the most against the twins’ pranks after Mrs. Weasley and Hermione. Harry had wasted away many afternoons just listening to Ron prattle on about how much he hated them, and how much they made his life miserable.

Harry could, of course, sympathize. He didn’t have siblings, but his cousin Dudley was basically a meaner, dumber, and uglier version of Fred and George. And Dudley had less finesse. _And_ had actual malicious intent behind his punches. Where Dudley was something akin to a war tank or perhaps a particularly clumsy bomb, Fred and George were more like morally ambiguous trickster spirits with their pranks.

So in the end, Dudley was really nothing like the twins. But Harry still liked to think he could sympathize with Ron’s plight on some level.

“You’re joking,” Hermione retorted. “You can’t seriously be thinking -”

“On the _condition_ ,” Ron pointedly interjected. “That I go before Harry. If you’re gonna melt anyone’s face off with a peppermint, it had better be your own brother. Just think how mom’d take it if you killed a family friend. Harry Potter, no less.”

Fred and George frowned, before wrapping their arms around Ron’s shoulders with conspiratorial grins. “Knew we’d win you over eventually, Ronnie.”

Ron shoved their arms away, before taking his place near Harry.

“Alright,” said Fred. “This is how the order goes then -”

“Ginny,” said George.

“Then Ron.”

“And _then_ Harry.”

The only one disappointed with the arrangement was Hermione and she was outvoted 5-to-1.

Ginny was handed her mint first, and unwrapped it as though dissecting a time-turner. She placed it on her tongue, closed her mouth behind it, and rolled it around in her cheeks a bit.

“How is it?” asked Harry.

“Minty.”

Ron scoffed, but said nothing. He clearly still wasn’t happy about being the twins’ test subject again. Harry had informed him he didn’t have to do this if he didn’t want to, but Ron assured he’d rather die at the hands of a peppermint than his mother.

It took a few moments before any real change began.

Ginny’s eyes had a strange gloss to them. A rosy tint filmed over her brown eyes, making them seem more of a chestnut than their normal russet shade.

“Gi- !” Hermione started, the first to notice the change, but Ginny cut her off with a hearty, tumbling laugh.

A strange feeling bubbled up into Harry’s chest at the sound of her laughter, but he dismissed it. Probably nothing.

“So it worked then?” Fred had a notepad floating beside him, a Quick Quotes Quill scratching down every fact of the experiment in extreme - and likely inaccurate - detail.

“Do you remember,” Ginny said, not really answering the question. She had her face tilted to the ceiling and a goofy smile splayed across her face. Harry tried and failed to keep that bubbly feeling of his in check. “That one year mum and dad let us do Halloween? With all the muggles?”

Fred, George, and Harry, and even Ron, exchanged grins. The mint worked.

“Fred and George dressed as each other -” she laughed again. “-Ron went as Harry Potter -”

“You did?” Harry murmured to Ron. Ron, now flustered, didn’t dare say a word.

“-and I was a spider. Just to mess with Ron’s head. Damn good spider at that, I got the most candy. Not like it mattered, we all had to share in the end.”

The Quill kept scratching away, all eyes on Ginny as she went on to recall various childhood stories with a distant, aloof tone and a rosy tint in her eyes. Even Hermione was impressed.

Not all good things last forever, though, and within about ten minutes the tint had begun to fade, and Ginny’s voice had become less wispy, and she swallowed whatever was left of the mint. Her smile hadn’t left though.

“Brilliant!” Ginny exclaimed. She threw her arms around her older brothers in one of her iconic bear-hugs, which they both had to wriggle their way out of like worms.

Hearing and seeing how happy Ginny was, only made Harry want to try the mint even more. The mint only took memories from the 10-and-under ages, arguably the least pleasant era in his life, but perhaps it would bring back happier times he’d somehow forgotten. Maybe (he hoped) his childhood wasn’t quite as grim as he always seemed to think it was.

Despite Harry’s protests, Ron still went next. He got the rosy, distant look, and the goofy grin, and he started going on about all sorts of happy times.

When he and Mr. Weasley went to Diagon Alley as just the two of them; when the twins left for their first day of Hogwarts, leaving Ron with his first day free of Fred and George; the first time he was allowed to play quidditch in the yard with his brothers.

Ron’s mint lasted three minutes shorter than Ginny’s, but that may have been because he was chewing it.

“Should’ve savoured it,” he confessed as he flopped onto the bed. “You gotta savour it, mate, makes it last longer.”

Hermione, at last, closed the book in her lap and rose to her feet. “Remember, if anything happens to him -”

Fred and George held up their hands in mock surrender. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Granger, nothing’s going to happen.”

“Nothing but a mindblowing nostalgia dream trip,” Ginny said dreamily. “It’s like being high, only more lucid.”

Ron glared at her. “What’s ‘being high’ mean?”

Harry, more knowledgeable in muggle ways, could only snicker.

Hermione, also knowledgeable in muggle ways, glared with her hands on her hips. “Since when do you get high?”

Ginny didn’t dignify the question with an answer, just an innocent shrug.

“Well Potter,” said Fred. He reached out a mint. “Ready to have a go?”

Harry nodded. He’d never been more ready to try potentially illicit substances in his life.

He gingerly unraveled the plastic wrap, careful not to cause any harm to the mint’s perfect red-and-white swirl pattern. Its refreshing scent wafted up to his nose, begging him to shove it in his mouth and taste the darn thing already.

And so he did.

It was, in fact, minty like Ginny said. But it was so much more than that - it tasted light, and springy, and a bit bitter. It tasted like leftover ice cream, and candy stolen from Dudley’s stocking that he didn’t want, and treats from the Hogwarts Express food cart.

He smiled broadly.

“It was two days after my ninth birthday,” he began. Did the bedroom walls always look this cheerful? “The Dursleys hadn’t gotten me anything, as usual. There was a sale going on at the mall and they wanted to buy new clothes for Dudley, but didn’t want to bring me along, so they left me with Mrs. Figg.”

The rest of the room’s occupants seemed pensive and a bit darkened at Harry’s mention of this. Probably making out his childhood to be worse than it really was. They had a nasty tendency to do that, and then use their own exaggerations as an excuse to mother him.

Harry laughed, at first to brighten the mood but then carried further into his laughing fit by the memories - memory - twirling about in his mind.

“She had to do errands that day,” Harry continued. “Grocery shopping. I’d never been to a grocery store before then, Aunt Petunia didn’t like me out of the house longer than I needed to be. Said the less people knew I existed, the better.”

Ron made a comment about that, a joke, but Harry was too involved in his own happy thoughts to care.

“We were going down one of the aisles when I saw it - a box of mac n cheese, but the macaroni pieces were shaped like superheroes.”

Ginny raised her hand, presumably to ask what mac n cheese and superheroes were, but Hermione swatted it down.

“It was such a neat idea, and I’d never seen it before. My experience with fancy foods was limited to what I saw the Dursleys eat, and the occasional cheese slice they’d lend me. One time I got lucky enough to finish off Dudley’s clam chowder, even.”

Harry ignored how many of his listeners seemed near to tears at this point. No matter. Just them being melodramatic about these things again.

“Mrs. Figg apparently noticed how enthralled I was by the idea, and - well - she got me some of the mac n cheese!”

Harry laughed some more, not sure why and he could guess no one else was sure either, but about a minute had passed before his face hurt too much to keep on.

So he resumed his story. “We went back to her house, I helped her put her groceries away, and she even let me watch cartoons on the TV while she boiled my mac n cheese on the stove. I couldn’t even focus on the cartoon I was so excited, just sat there bouncing on the sofa while I waited. Eventually the wait was over, and she gave a steaming bowl of cheesy noodles. Just for me, not to share with anyone, and it certainly wasn’t cold.”

His next chuckle was a lot shorter, and everyone else was secretly relieved by this.

“Of course, the Dursleys came in before I’d managed to finish and fed the rest of it to Dudley. Yelled at me all about how I’d forced her to go out of her way for me, how I was such a burden, all that. You can bet I got three days locked in my cupboard for that.” Harry crossed his arms over his chest, beaming widely. “But it was worth it.”

Ron was the first to speak. “...Wait. Three days in your _what now_?”

Harry didn’t answer, just sat on the other bed in the room and smiled to the ceiling. If only this feeling could stay forever. Tucked away in this little memory of his he wouldn’t have to deal with the Dursleys, or Voldemort, or Cedric being...well. He wouldn’t have to deal with his life as it was. He could just drift from happy thought to happy thought, and stay like that forever.

Wouldn’t that be nice.

“H-Harry,” stammered Hermione. There was a frightened quiver in her tone. “You’re...you’re shaking.”

Harry looked down at his hands, and they were indeed shaking. Trembling, more accurately, trembling like an earthquake. He couldn’t steady them, but it wasn’t like he really wanted to. All Harry wanted was to fall back into that afternoon with Mrs. Figg, her cats, and the mac n cheese bowl. If he reached out far enough, maybe he could even smell it again.

“Harry, spit it out!” Hermione ordered.

Harry shrugged lazily. “No...I don’t think I will…”

Ron thrusted himself at Harry, but the moment he did, everything fell away.

Harry wasn’t conscious for the events that followed, for his vision became black the moment his knees buckled and his head hit the floor.

While he swam about in his own happy little dreams, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and the twins screamed and panicked about his convulsing form. His arms jerked about and his eyes rolled back, legs twisting around themselves and mouth drooling just a bit.

Ron tried to pick him up so they could carry him down to the living room, where all the adults were meeting, but Harry’s skin had grown hot to the touch.

“What the _hell_ did you do?!” Hermione shrieked.

“Nothing, we swear!”

“It worked so well on Ron and Ginny!”

Hermione, Fred, and George kept shouting at each other, while Ginny ran to get Mrs. Weasley and Ron stood by in frozen awe.

Just as Ginny disappeared into the hall, a new development occurred, snapping Hermione and the twins’ attentions back towards Harry.

His silhouette seemed smaller than it was supposed to be. Harry was already a scrawny and withered-looking individual, looking ready to blow away with a strong gust of wind to begin with (partly why he was such a good seeker) - but he wasn’t _this_ small. And for that matter, this _young_.

“Accio mint!” shouted Fred, and the peppermint came speeding out Harry’s mouth. But it was too late. The damage had been done.

When Ginny returned with Mrs. Weasley, Lupin, and Sirius in tow, Harry was gone.

And in his place, a bundle of clothes.

And amidst that bundle of clothes, an unconscious nine-year-old boy with a familiar lightning-bolt scar.


End file.
